Monday, June 11, 2012

Summer Learning - Letter L

My posts about our week of learning will be a week behind so that I have pictures of the activities that we accomplished throughout the week. Of course, if something spectacular happens during the week, I will most definitely post it for you all to see! So, let's get started on our Summer of Learning at Robbins Academy!

Rookie (4.5 yrs old)

Ace (37 mos)

Ladybug (11mos)

To start, I had fun finding all of our Letter L critters to decorate their table. I was also very excited to be able to use the lion tails I made for the women's dinner last year to hang on their chairs. The boys love hanging the tails on them and acting like lions. I placed their binders on the desk and put their books in a basket on the table until we get the shelves up on the wall to display them. The room is still not finished yet, but that will come. I WILL definitely be glad to get those shelves up to give us more space on the table. That was something I found we definitely needed...all the space we can get!

So, how did our week go? First day was crazy fun! Second day was a bit more strenuous, but the week rounded out nicely. We were definitely excited for week two.

You can see how much we accomplished in the week! They boys were so excited to show Daddy what they did at weeks end. When I thought about homeschooling, I have to admit that there are parts of public school that I enjoyed and one was the excitement of showing your parents what you had been doing at school. I thought we were going to miss out on this since I would be here with them, but to my surprise, we get to have this excitement every week when they get to take Daddy upstairs to show him all that they have been doing and the songs they know. It really made my heart smile to see this. Robby agreed that anytime relatives or friends are over that the boys will have to share their excitement with them too. Hopefully they will hold on to the FUN of learning this way.

The boys loved using their lap trays for calendar time. I thought it would be nice to have them just spiral bound, but I found certain pages might need to be in page protectors since we will have to do rewrite words on those pages every day. There are only so many times you can trace over the word "June" on our month page.

Ace really enjoyed writing in his binder and has become quite particular of using the dry erase markers over crayons. I DO try to let him choose, but some days I ask him to use a different medium for variety AND to have something to keep in his finished book. Rookie LOVED his easy reader and I was so impressed at how well he did reading it.

Our Handwriting without Tears activities are right up the boys' alley and we get to move around a lot. I really like how much Ace is learning right along with Rookie. He will be ahead of the game for sure!

Of course there is ALWAYS snack time and a bit of signing time to go along with it!

Let's not forget Ladybug who right there in the middle of them. I am constantly exposing and redirecting her to a toy or book to keep her engaged. She would much rather be doing what they are doing in her own way.

Some expressive Art Time. I turned on Classical music and just let them draw whatever they wanted to. Once again, Ladybug was right in the middle of it all stealing their crayons.

A bit of Letter sorting (with Ladybug a tad unhappy that she couldn't play too)

Ace putting his Leaf Numbers in order....I was impressed at how well he did. I believe he truly does already know his numbers and how to count to ten not just a memorization!

Rookie's memory verse that he taped together

Some dot paint and lacing among other activities

Finally, I did a Letter writing assessment for Rookie at the end of the week. Just some practice using our HWT terminology. This is the FIRST time I have been able to get him to translate a letter to the line without a letter to trace! SUCCESS!

MY PERSONAL lessons learned this week was #1: a reminder to pray on my own every day before I begin. We prayed together to start the day, but I definitely need my own moment with God to focus our day. Lesson #2: take a deep breath and have patience. I was getting over a cold and so it was a tad tough for me to talk and sing. Which made the days a bit more stressful. It is definitely not easy to keep a talker (Ace) and a mover (Rookie) focused on their own tasks especially when they are so close to the same skills.